


love is what makes the ride worthwhile

by moprocrastinates



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pining!Bellamy, Requested fic, angry!Clarke, long ass hair!Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7207745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moprocrastinates/pseuds/moprocrastinates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Octavia, intelligent and ahead of her time, once asked where their hero was. Bellamy just swallowed and distracted her, whispering under their holed and shared bedsheets of knights in sparkling armor with shining swords and fearless of the dragon who circled around the castle of the princess.</p><p>He never really expected his knight in shining armor to actually be the princess locked away in the tower.</p><p>|| or, the one where Clarke bursts into his gray life with a whirlwind of color. ||</p><p> </p><p>  <b> Nominee at the 2016 Bellarke Fanfiction Awards for "Most Underrated Oneshot." </b></p>
            </blockquote>





	love is what makes the ride worthwhile

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, yes, it's me. I'm back again. Two fics in two days. I'm incorrigible, really. 
> 
> This is a requested fic from [NATASHA!!!](http://natashaatwell.tumblr.com) (P.S- you were so sweet when you asked for this, and I was so tickled that you get a whole fic of FLUFF. And some angst. Because I'm me, and I love a little smidgen of angst.)
>
>> natashaatwell asked: 
>> 
>> Hi there! I just read a post that said that your request are open! So as a fan of your work, here we go: Bellarke are in bed together and just talking about everything they have accomplished together, the live they've built with one another and just fluffy fluff. 

It’s times like these that Bellamy really, really hopes that all this isn’t just a dream. 

Clarke’s pressed against his side and snoring softly, a blond wave tucked into her mouth and moving with every rise and fall of her chest. His old blue t-shirt (the one that makes Clarke more than a little aware of him) sits comfortably on her body, while her van Gogh socks press up against his calves. Her face is barely visible, hiding in her pillow, and with the blankets surrounding her, she looks like his vision of heaven. 

Well, heaven on Earth (in his bed). 

He’s not really sure what time it is (Clarke’s not exactly a morning person, and he’d forgotten to turn off his work alarm, and sometime during the wee hours of the morning, she’d chucked one of their throw pillows at the clock in frustration), but he’s really okay with staying here for a few minutes longer if it means he can just watch her sleep for a while. 

It’s totally not creepy. They’ve been dating for two years. 

She makes a small noise when he shifts onto his side to get a better view of her face, and it takes everything in him not to reach out and touch her, to brush her cheek with his knuckles, or trace his pointer finger around her lips, all just to remind him that she’s still there. 

There have been so many ups and downs in their lives, ones that brought them to life and ones that tore them apart, and yet they still remained, together, broken pieces finding ways to make a complete picture again. 

His thoughts take over as he watches her chest rise and fall.

Bellamy raised Octavia – a frightening, daunting, and seemingly impossible job for an eleven-year old who wanted nothing more than to read comics and tell his little sister magical stories about heroes who always saved the princess. Their mother, Aurora, had been out. 

He never asked, but Bellamy knew what _out_ meant. 

Octavia, intelligent and ahead of her time, once asked where their hero was. Bellamy just swallowed and distracted her, whispering under their holed and shared bedsheets of knights in sparkling armor with shining swords and fearless of the dragon who circled around the castle of the princess.

He never really expected his knight in shining armor to actually be the princess locked away in the tower. 

Clarke bursts into his gray life with a whirlwind of color. She’d just transferred to Ark University from a big college town on the east coast, and at first she had been just the annoying girl in his lit theory class—the one who answered all the questions, did every single reading, and argued with every point he made in class. 

“I’m not saying you’re dumb,” She tells him primly one day when he challenges her on one of her points, “I’m just saying you’re wrong.”

Then, dear Professor Kane assigns them a partner project, and Bellamy draws the short straw. He is stuck with Clarke, and there is no way he can switch partners. (Believe him, he tries.) 

So he trudges over to her room, scowling all the way, and when she opens the door, she smiles at him and lets him in. 

Her artwork immediately enraptures him in a way that the stories of those heroes did when he was younger, and the smell of paint fumes mixed with the fresh daisies she has in a glass jar makes his head swim. 

Every square inch of bare wall space is covered in pastel or watercolor paintings, colorful sketches lay scattered across the ground, and Clarke has to shove aside stacks of photos to find him a place to sit. 

“Sorry about the mess,” She apologizes, reaching up and wiping her forehead, leaving behind a streak of red paint that Bellamy suddenly finds himself wishing he could wipe off. “I was inspired, and well, you know, when the muse strikes…” 

He laughs, and it is the start of their friendship. 

Pretty soon, Bellamy begins to defend her points rather than argue against them. (Well, okay, he argues against her points, but when anyone else argues against her, he finds himself taking her side.) They have lunch together, study together, watch movies and read books together, and when Clarke meets Octavia, Bellamy is pretty sure that Octavia is seriously considering disowning him and making Clarke her sister instead. 

Clarke is pretty much his best friend. Not that he had many others to begin with, but she is his favorite.

And then her dad dies. 

Bellamy didn’t originally know much about Jake Griffin. He’d met the man a couple of times when he brought Clarke home from the movies and Jake had wanted to make sure his daughter got in safely, but the day Clarke comes into his room and throws herself into his arms, Bellamy just holds her and prays to the god he doesn’t believe in that somehow, some way, Jake would come back. 

But he doesn’t, and Clarke heals. Slowly. 

However, she changes in her healing process. 

She keeps her hair long and matted, tangled to a point where Bellamy can’t even see where her curls begin. A scowl is permanently etched on her face, matching the disgusting scars from the fights she is suddenly prone to getting into. Her rages are something to be feared— fellow classmates take to calling her “The Dragon,” behind her back, and cross the street whenever they see her coming. Bellamy is the only one brave enough to challenge her in the one class they share, and even their professor seems decently afraid of her. Clarke acts out, lashes out, and calls others out, even at the expense of hurting their feelings. She even does it to him a few times, and while her comments sting, Bellamy is her best friend through thick and thin. 

(This just happens to be the really thin part.)

She snarls at Octavia in front of all their friends, and it's then that Bellamy finally has had enough.

“Clarke, stop.” He commands, and her reaction is like pulling the trigger on a gun. Her head whips around, and she freezes, her blue eyes blurring and clouding. 

The table goes dead silent. Miller and Jasper stop making fun of Monty, instead fixing their eyes on the exchange in front of them. Lincoln seems stunned into shocked silence. Murphy and Raven both have beers halfway to their mouths, and neither move, their eyes flickering around the table. 

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Clarke chokes out, and stumbles away from the table. 

Bellamy is only steps behind her, but by the time he makes it through the crowd and out the door, she had disappeared. 

No one sees her for weeks. Bellamy knows she had gotten into a relationship with Lexa Woods via Facebook, and while he is happy for her, his heart sinks to the bottom of a metaphorical ocean inside of him. He’d long accepted his feelings for her at this point, and was perfectly content with where he had been. 

Now, he isn’t so sure where they stand. 

Three months later, she shows up at his door in raggedy sweats, one of his t-shirts, and slippers. Her hair is similar to that of a bird’s nest, and she has dark circles under her eyes. 

He doesn’t say anything, and just looks at her. 

“I miss you,” Clarke mumbles, and it is an apology and proclamation all in one. 

She tells him how she and Lexa had broken up (nastily, to her chagrin) and how she’d been going to therapy. 

“I feel better, Bell,” she says, stuffing a spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth (Bellamy tries to look anywhere but at the sinful and stupidly sultry way she is licking the peanut butter off the spoon). “I dropped out of med school. I’m doing what I want – art – and I learned to grieve. But most of all, I know what I need now.” 

“That’s good,” he manages, fastidiously fixing his gaze on her van Gogh socks. “So what are you going to do about it?” 

She smiles. “I’m going after it.” 

The next year is a hassle for both of them. With the pressure of waiting for grad school acceptances and finishing their work, Bellamy and Clarke struggle to find time for each other. They’re best friends as always, but Bellamy begins to sense that maybe Clarke wants something more. Hell, he’s waited for this for the past two years, but part of him thinks he’s overthinking it— all the touches, the way she laughs at all his dumb history jokes, and the way she seems to immediately gravitate towards him, even in a room full of crowded people. 

He asks Octavia what she thinks, and she tells him he’s a moron.

But Clarke doesn’t do anything, and he moves on. He dates, but it’s not the same. 

When they both get accepted to the same grad school, Clarke jumps into his arms and laughs, and he can’t help beaming at her. 

(Octavia sends the picture to him, and so what if he makes it his background photo? It’s not like Clarke’ll ever know.)

Two years into their time at Polaris for grad school, Clarke bursts into his apartment one Saturday evening. 

“Okay, I’m sick of this.” She says, hands thrashing and her hair whipping as she stomps across his kitchen floor. Bellamy’s been reading on the couch, glasses on and curls askew. 

“What are you sick of?” He asks absentmindedly (he’s sorry, but seriously— The Iliad is part of his thesis, and _no_ , it’s not boring, Clarke, he has to read it—). 

Bellamy doesn’t even get a chance to look up at her before she’s yanking the book out of his hands, planting herself on his lap and pressing her lips against his. 

He freezes. 

He’s waited for this for years now, and he fucking _freezes_. 

Clarke stops and pulls away, looking horribly alone and small in front of him. She makes to get off, shaking her head, and it’s her whisper of, “I was so fucking sure,” that does it for him. 

He snags her hand and yanks her back, this time pressing his lips to hers with a feverishness he didn’t know he had. 

It’s the best kiss of his life.

Fast-forward two years, and here they are. Bellamy’s a high school history teacher, working towards his PhD, and Clarke teaches art to middle schoolers. They’re happy, and he’s definitely getting her a dog at some point. 

“Will you stop staring at me?” Clarke’s voice rouses him from his memories, and there she is, blinking sleepily at him, and if Bellamy had a voice right now, he would probably wax poetic about his love for Clarke’s sleepy blue eyes. 

“Uh, probably not. Probably not ever.” He says, leaning forward to press his lips against her cheek. When he pulls back, he’s greeted with his favorite sight— her smile. 

Her hands come out from under the covers, one coming up to tuck itself under the side of her head and the other reaches out to caress his cheek. Her thumb strokes in time to his heartbeat. 

“We’ve come along way, haven’t we?” Bellamy murmurs, turning his face into her palm to press a kiss there. 

“Yeah,” Clarke sighs, watching him. “I was so alone, and then so sad and angry, and then so very in love with you that I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, and you were there through all of it. You loved me through all of it, whether you knew it or not.”

Her pinky finger brushes his pulse, and he shudders, making Clarke giggle. 

“You’re my hero, Bellamy Blake,” she whispers before catching his lips with hers.

He can feel himself getting drowsy. “And you’re mine,” Bellamy mumbles, eyes fluttering open and closed.

“I love you,” Clarke says softly. Her eyes search his, and he sees the promise in hers.

The last thing he thinks before he completely drifts off is that their story is better than the ones he used to read to Octavia— after all, this story isn’t over.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my story! Comment and click that 'kudos' button if you like/love/felt something about it. 
> 
> My [tumblr.](http://www.moprocrastinates.tumblr.com)


End file.
